Over 34,000 driving licenses of the Republic of Moldova were issued since January 2017 until the end of last year to residents of the Transnistrian region based on the available simplified exchange mechanism. The Bureau for Reintegration Policies, which uses data from the Public Services Agency, notes a constant increase in the number of national driving licenses issued to residents of the Transnistrian region, IPN reports.

According to figures from the State Transport Register, between September 1, 2018 and December 31, 2023, more than 10,000 noncommercial vehicles of the Transnistrian region were issued with neutral-design license plates at the vehicle registration points in Tiraspol and Rybnitsa cities and 17,500 registration certificates were issued. Given the maintained restrictions and the politicization by Tiraspol of primary registration services, only 376 vehicles were registered in 2023. This is 13-fold decrease in registration dynamics compared to 2021.

The mechanism of neutral-design license plates doesn’t replace registration with national plates and access to international road traffic is allowed only if the state Republic of Moldova is clearly identified and national driving licenses and other documents issued by the competent national institutions are possessed.

Following the introduction in 2023 of the obligation to hold a compulsory motor third party liability insurance policy on paper or in an electronic format, 4,725 contracts were drawn up the previous year. However, it is almost three times less compared to 2018, when the vehicle registration points in Tiraspol and Rybnitsa were opened, the Bureau for Reintegration Policies said.